In the last time we got error reports about AVI capture with IC Capture.AS 2.1. The problem was IC Capture.2.1 simply crashing. Today I did tests on my own with IC Capture.AS 2.1 in Windows XP SP3.

I used a DMK 31AF03 with 1/127 second exposure time at 30 fps. I captured up to 15 minutes and got an AVI file of 25898 frames, 18.9 GB size. This file was flawlessly readable by Windows Media Player. Thus, my earlier recommendations regarding AVI file sizes are wrong. I have to apologize.

I also checked what happens, if the hard disc runs out of space while AVI capture. In just one word short word: nothing. Windows gave a balloon tooltip, saying "Low disc space". The live video stream did not continue in IC Capture, no more frames were saved into the AVI file. After the AVI capture was stopped, the live video display continued. I checked the AVI file in Media Player and again, there was no problem. Thus, even if the hard disc is full, the AVI file stays readable.

However, there have been errors reported. If IC Capture crashes for some reason while AVI Capture, then the AVI file header will not be written and the AVI file is unusable. Worse: The Windows Explorer tries to open this file, when the directory content is listed and it crashes too. The damaged AVI file must be deleted from the command line (cmd) or using another tool like "SpeedCommander" or "Total Commander".

Since I have no clue, why IC Capture can crash while AVI capture, I need some more information, e.g. Windows version and service pack, driver versions, DirectX version, graphics board (I do not know, whether it is important) and at least, what was done exactly, so may be I get some steps to reproduce this. Also the exact IC Capture version is a valuable information. The latest version 2.1.103.536 can be downloaded for free from http://www.astronomycameras.com/en/products/software/iccaptureas/ . A license key is required for the setup.

Thank you in advance.

Steve Hill

February 12, 2010, 21:10:17

Hi Stefan,

First thanks for sorting out my lost serial number!

I hope I can help with this problem. The problem I see is that occasionally (maybe once in 10 or so) recording sessions cause IC Capture to crash at the end of the recording i.e. after "stop" has been pressed. The AVI file is there, but unreadable as you report.

The size of the file does not seem to matter. I have had it happen for very short (a few seconds) sequences and long (a few minutes) sequences.

In some case IC Capture locks up completely and the PC has to be rebooted. I have observed this behaviour in 2.0.1.483 and 2.1.103.536.

I am running Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

Dell Inspiron 1.7GHz, 2GB RAM.

I have appended my DxDiag information in case this is useful to you.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with. I have a corrupted AVI, but it is 500Mbyte!

Steve.

Mars4ever

April 13, 2010, 16:28:48

Hi all. I sometimes have the same problem too. Last summer the crashes were very frequent (also more than once per night!) and I had to brutally switch off the notebook, while now fortunately the bug is more rare and "only" the software crashes.
However, the Windows event viewer in control panel says that the errors have something to do with the file "qcap.dll", version 6.5.2600.5512, error adress 0x00022295.
Could this information be useful to you developer to fix the bug?
Thanks.

Stefan Geissler

April 13, 2010, 16:58:28

Hello

Thank you for the hint. The qcap.dll is a Microsoft DirectShow DLL, used by all DirectShow programs. I forward this to my programmers. However, if we are not able to reproduce the problem, escpecially if it occurs not in our code, then it is hard to narrow it down.

patry

November 15, 2010, 11:43:32

If it helps, I had opened a ticket for this point one year ago.
I was contacted by Stephan and I followed his instructions ... but from time to time, the same problem occurs.

The hang is systematically at the end of the capture, due to the time limit (I rarely used it) the frame limit (most of the time), or the "stop capture" ; most of the time, when I capture in LRGB (using a DMK21), the "L" (23A filter) contains much more data than R,G or B data. Thus, I select the limit for L and "stop" the acquisition for R,G and B channels. Obviously, when ANY of my 4 captures crashes, the time needed to restart the computer is too long to "join" the other channels (when imaging jupiter mainly).

If heading data is lost, is it possible to record it in some place (text file or whatever) and be able to restore it afterwards ? IC-C "knows" what to fill, and, except for the exact frame number, all datas should be "restorable" ?
And, frankly, I'm ready to get rid of last few dozen frames, if I can keep thousands of others !

But I also noticed most of the time (if not all times) the live histogram window is opened during acquisition. Of course, it is not refreshed but simply open.
I do not want to say it is linked to the problem but I have the feeling it is "worse" with histogram opened than closed !

Imaging speed do not seem to have effects on the problem (meaning in the data flow), 7,5fps or 60fps (ok ok say 54fps on my laptop) may "crash" equally, nor gain, gamma or other parameters.

My small contribution to the problem.

Marc PATRY

Rando

May 28, 2011, 00:01:14

Hello everyone,

If you are a user of XP and happen to use Imaging Source's IC Capture, you might have had some intentionally aborted avi's or the program has froze for some reason and did not complete the avi file. Trying to delete these avi files via Windows XP explorer, causes Windows Explorer to close with an error. The only way is to delete the file via the comand prompt which some do not no how to do.

The fix is to delete a key in the Windows XP registry that is an "AVI Processer" key. When you hover your mouse over the listed uncompleted avi file, Windows Explorer tries to read the file header, which hasn't been written due to the abort of the avi file or when IC capture froze during the imaging. Hence the crash in Windows Explorer. (Am I making sense?) So the fix is to delete a key in the Windows Registry called "InProcServer32". This will allow you to delete the incomplete avi file within Windows Explorer. Here's the path to the key in the registry:

If this looks frigtening to you, get someone with a little more computer savy to help you remove this key. I have tested it on both my XP machines and have intentionally aborted test runs of avi files in IC Capture and I can now delete them with no problem in Windows XP Explorer.

This key doesn't exist in Windows VISTA (I don't know about Windows 7 as I don't have it yet), and that is why I could delete incomplete/corrupted avi files in VISTA with no problems, but not in XP.

Note: Although it looks like an IC Capture problem, it is actually a Windows Explorer Issue. This problem even occured using the latest update of IC Capture V 2.2 with Windows XP. The registry key has something to do with previewing AVI files. You don't see this key in VISTA.

Randy

Stefan Geissler

May 30, 2011, 15:35:27

The problem is caused by IC Capture in case of a crash or a device lost due to AVI capture. The header of the AVI file is not written, thus the Windows Explorer does not know, how to handle the AVI file. Unfortunately the Windows crashes in this situation instead of having a proper error handling. Our programs are aware of this problem, but it is hard to reproduce and therefore to fix. We apologize for this.

akjudge

May 31, 2011, 18:54:53

I not so sure that this is specific to IC Capture. I had a corrupted AVI file saved in MaxIm 4 folder. Whenever I used Windows Explorer to open the MaxIm 4 folder, Windows Explorer would crash. It is possible that the bad AVI file was created using IC Capture -- I just can't remember. I fixed it by deleting the AVI file using a command prompt. Note: Microsoft offers a PowerToy called CmdHerePowertoy that adds an "Open Command Prompt here" to the right click menu. Very handy..

Jim

Stefan Geissler

June 1, 2011, 15:58:55

Well, I use the Total Commander instead of Windows Explorer. Therefore I do not have these problems with corrupted AVI files, except I wont be able to replay them.